The Fellowship of Lifea Christian-based vegetarian group founded in 1973

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REFLECTIONS on the fight for justice for animals

An address given at the Crusade Against All Cruelty to Animals
A.G.M. on October 23rd, 1971 by patron, Canon H.J. Hammerton, M.A.:

It is indeed the greatest possible pleasure for me to have made
this pilgrimage to the home of the Crusade Against All Cruelty to
Animals and I find it to have a happy and homely atmosphere. The
cover picture of the current issue of the "The Living World" is of a
family of swans and the caption inside is: 'Happy family in a North
London park'. Now I shall always think of the Crusade Headquarters
as a happy family in a North London street. Perhaps there is a sense
in which this is misleading. Might it not be that the happy
welcoming atmosphere is a cover-up for something? Would it not be a
finer description to call this place an arsenal, providing us with
weapons in the shape of information and inspiration in our battle
for justice in the earth, justice for the animals? They cannot plead
their own cause, either by peaceful demonstration or by violent
uprising. They look to us to seek justice for them, and if we don't,
justice they will not have.

Mr Fryer doesn't look like a revolutionary and Miss Cooper is
very well disguised if she is one. But, you know, that is what they
are, and that is what we all are. Freedom fighters, seeking the
freedom of animals to inhabit this world which belongs to them as
well as to us and to inhabit it without fear of constant
exploitation or willful cruelty. Most revolutionaries are motivated
by a desire for better conditions for themselves or for their peers
and whoever heard of a revolution that sought better conditions for
others? But this is what our movement is about. We have nothing to
gain for ourselves, unless indeed it be the freedom to sleep at
night with a clear conscience because the world is at peace and all
the inhabitants of the world, human and animal, are at peace as
well. That, I am afraid, is only a dream at the moment; and the
battle must continue and it must be determined and total warfare.

Many of you will perhaps have read Konrad Lorenz's book "On
Aggression". It was a happy moment for me when I was present at the
granting of honorary degrees a few years ago at Leeds University and
when I discovered that Conrad Lorenz was one of the recipients. He
is a good man, inspired by the vision of peace and goodwill that
extends beyond human relationships with one another to relationships
with animals, in which the suspicion of centuries is slowly melted
away and replaced by confidence growing out of unfailing and
trustworthy kindness. In his book Dr Lorenz says that aggression
should not be removed from human life so much as
redirected. And this in fact is what happens. The pitched battle
is replaced by a battle on a football pitch though sometimes it must
be admitted that the distinction is hard to see. Humour and laughter
are often the sublimation of our aggressive instincts, parlous
enough in all conscience, but showing traces of their ancestry when
we laugh at the misfortunes of others. The Germans have a word for
it, I believe - Schadenfreude. Well, it was this kind of
sublimation I had in mind when I called this Centre an arsenal.
There is live ammunition here, of no use for guns and mortars but
powerful in our redirected aggression on behalf of justice for the
animals and it must be, I am afraid, against those who either with
evil intent or through ignorance mercilessly exploit our animal
neighbours. This is the kind of spiritual warfare that is directed
from this Centre and the Council of Management is there to provide
the direction of the strategy.

Since this warfare is of the kind that St. Paul often spoke about
- spiritual warfare - it will be conducted without personal
acrimony. In fact, lack of this could be our strongest weapon. I
often used to wonder as a boy what the words of St. Paul meant when
he said "Be ye angry and sin not". The Gospels made clear that some
kinds of anger are sinful but this sentence envisages a kind of
anger that is not. That kind of anger was displayed by Jesus in the
temple. There he blazed with anger at the desecration of His
Father's House, and the exploitation of His Father's children. But
it was not an anger that was prompted by any desire for personal
advancement. He was not campaigning for his own rights. He was
upholding justice and he was deeply angry when that justice was
denied.

This righteous indignation can be and must be ours sometimes, but
let us see to it that no vindictiveness makes our motives impure. I
say this because I believe it is possible in our cause for anger
that is insufficiently sublimated to take on the nature of a
personal vendetta and when this is so our cause can be harmed. This
aggressiveness we do not want. I believe it is possible to get to
the point when we are almost glad that some act of cruelty to
animals gives us an opportunity to direct our aggression towards
those who are responsible. And it is then that we lose our sense of
proportion, and our cause is dismissed since it is presented in such
an obviously unbalanced way. What I have long admired about the
Crusade is its sense of proportion and its care not to overstate the
case; because when the case is overstated, our witness is
discounted. Whatever you think about the redoubtable Mrs.
Whitehouse, who has attacked abuses in other directions, it is
certain that because of some lack of discrimination in her attacks
and sense of proportion, her case goes by default with very many
reasonable people.

Let us then keep our aggression trained on the right target -
unjust practices that keep the animals disadvantaged - and when it
is necessary to attack the persons and the organisations who are
responsible for this, let us do it fearlessly but do it without
rancour and with balanced judgement. There is such a thing as
winning an argument and losing a friend. Far better, if we can, to
win both. I emphasise this because much of the cruelty we campaign
against - in farming practices, in scientific experiment and in
'sport' at the expense of animals - much of this is due to ignorance
which it is our job to dispel.

I saw only the other day an advertisement for a Christmas food
hamper and first on the list of items was pate de foie gras. Perhaps
that is deliberately disguised in French like those tiresome menus
with which high class hotels try to confuse us. Still I don't
suppose many know that foie gras really is diseased liver with the
disease deliberately induced by the forcible feeding of the goose.
The Crusade can supply a picture of this forcible feeding and I
guarantee that after seeing it not many people will touch pate de
foie gras again. I believe, if I remember rightly, that the picture
was taken in France which leads me to wonder what the effect on our
work is going to be if we go into the Common Market with countries
where the legal safeguards against cruelty to animals may be even
laxer than they are here. Perhaps next year our A.G.M. will be in
Paris and after that - God help us - in Madrid!

But the point I'm making is that we can dispel ignorance by
facts, we can advance our cause considerably, because for every
villain who cares nothing for animal suffering, there are, I
believe, a dozen people who are unwittingly cruel from ignorance. If
they knew that a young calf had to be enclosed virtually in its own
coffin while still alive just to supply us with white meat, if they
could see a picture of the calf which we can supply they would turn
away from their veal with loathing when they realise for the first
time the price in animal suffering which has had to be paid for it.
This is where we need the Crusade. They have the ammunition. All
they want are frontline ranks to discharge it. Their literature and
publicity are first class and we owe it to them to ensure that it
has the widest circulation and impact.

I mentioned villains a moment ago. Yes, there are those who pay
no attention to animal suffering and one or two here and there who
positively enjoy it. I can't explain this. I can only bow my head in
shame at the contemplation of it. I believe that loss of any sense
of the future is responsible for much delinquency today. Let us eat,
drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. This is a proverb which has
really come into its own again. I believe, too, that wrong handling
of children can blunt their moral sense perhaps permanently. I
didn't see the item on the television the other night but I was
struck by the title of it, "If at first you don't succeed" - that
is, in the training of children - "If at first you don't succeed,
you don't succeed." It's a very sad title, in fact, and perhaps
over-stated again, but we know what it means, that something happens
in the first few years and the moral sense can almost permanently be
blunted. But anyone who talks like this today is smeared with the
frightful title of 'do-gooder'. But whatever the reason, deliberate
cruelty is there and must be combated. Only last week I was talking
to a leader of a youth club in a difficult part of Leeds. They are a
first class body of young people with the usual one or two
exceptions and one of them - one of the exceptions - came in one
evening with a hedgehog he'd picked up somewhere in the street,
oddly enough, and after some preliminary investigation, he put it
down on the ground and just stamped on it - stamped on it.

This deliberate cruelty - it's a baffling thing - but it will not
be removed by the giving of facts and the supplying of information.
It is a moral education that is required, as our Chairman has
already reminded us, and how do you give that? Generally, I think,
it is not taught but caught. If cruelty is infectious well,
then, so is compassion. Let us see to it that our compassion is of
the infectious kind, and children catch it most easily. And I
applaud the Crusade's initiative in their work with children.
Nothing could be more important. This is really getting at the heart
of the problem. It's a slow and a long-term project but I think it
is the only one, and I'm still old fashioned enough to believe that
moral education is best grounded in religious education. People of
all faiths and of none can join us in championing the cause of
animals. We will join hands with anybody but at least you'll allow
me my vision - and some of you I know will share it - of a
universal Father who is responsible for all life, who marks the
sparrow's fall, who is worshipped by all His Creation, by men
consciously and by animals simply by being themselves live, loving
and furry.

God takes pleasure in his diverse Creation, and looks to us to
accept guardianship of the animals. When they serve us we must see
to it that cruel exploitation is avoided. If it is not then there is
a djinn in the universe, evil is let loose and it will find
its way back to us. God's desire that peace and goodwill should
prevail between man and animals was transmitted to one of the old
prophets who lived some eight centuries before Christ. And could I
do better than end with his vision of universal peace in the earth.
"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie
down with the kid and the calf and the young lion and the fatling
together and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the
bear shall feed, their young ones shall lie down together and the
lion shall eat straw like the ox and the suckling child shall play
on the hole of the asp and the weaned child shall put his hand on
the cockatrice' den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy
mountain for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as
the waters cover the sea."